


We've Both Changed

by QueenForADay



Series: Mercenary [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: After 70 or so years maybe, Change of Scene, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, slight angst, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 01:51:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6834139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenForADay/pseuds/QueenForADay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Reader finds Bucky's apartment in Bucharest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We've Both Changed

“ _German special forces are en route,_ ” Sam says through the comm.

You stand in the middle of the apartment. The windows are covered in newspapers and it looks barely lived in. There’s a mattress to one of the corners with a pillow and sleeping bag on it. You walk around, keeping your steps quiet and light.

“( _Y/N)?_ ” Sam’s voice comes through the comm again.

“Yeah,” you reply, “I heard you.”

Steve’s voice cuts in. “ _Are you okay?_ ”

You swallow the lump that’s been forming in your throat since you knew about his location. How Steve knew his apartment was here, you didn’t ask. You just needed to see him again.

“Yeah,” you say a bit hoarsely. You clear your throat. “I’m fine.”

The apartment is small, with everything being more or less in one room except for a small bathroom. As you creep towards the kitchen area, you notice little things about the apartment. The notes left on the table, a journal that’s perched on top of the refrigerator.

You reach out for the journal and thumb open the pages. The first thing you see is a collection of scribbles, lines cutting across the page linking one small paragraph to another. As you flick through more pages, you see small snippets of newspapers and files. You don’t linger on one page for too long, and then you see it. On one page is a picture of Steve in his old Captain America uniform, before he was frozen. It’s a picture that’s in the museum in Washington, you recognise it. On the other page is a picture of you. An old one. You’re in that museum too as part of the new soldiers that Steve fights beside. Underneath your picture are more scribbles. One catches your eye.

You see your name, underlined and in bolded writing.

The feeling of the room suddenly changes. You can feel eyes on the back of your head.

“ _They’re moving to the other end of the city_ ,” Sam says into your ear, “ _I’ll keep an eye on them_.”

“Copy that,” you say.

The feeling of the room only grows. It’s tense, and something around your shifts.

Looking over your shoulder, you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

He’s just there: standing there looking at you like he’s either going to attack you or jump out the window. Your breath is caught in your throat.

You don’t say his name, and he doesn’t say anything.

The tension that’s in the room settles between you like a heavy blanket. You’ve seen him before this. You’ve seen him on the bridge in Washington. You’ve seen him on the helicarrier with Steve. You’ve fought against him out of your own defence. He tried to kill both you and Steve.

Now though, something’s different. His face isn’t obscured by a mask. You can see his eyes more clearly, how they’re slightly brighter than they were before, but something is still behind them.

You breathe in for the first time in what seems like minutes.

“Bucky?” you say softly.

You don’t know which one you’re speaking too, but you prepare for a chase or a fight.

His eyes stare into yours, but he looks you over from your head to your feet.

You stand up a bit straighter when you don’t get a response. Squaring your shoulders, you fingers twitch for your holstered gun to your side.

He says your name. It’s quiet, and you almost miss it, but it’s there.

It’s the most you’ve managed to get out of him since figuring out he was alive. He was so silent in Washington. You remember yelling and screaming at him to remember who you were. It didn’t seem to get through at all.

“ _GSF have hit the city’s boarders,_ ” Steve’s voice is suddenly in your ear. You turn your head away from Bucky to hear him a bit better. “ _Do you want Sam to keep following them?_ ”

You think about it for a minute. “Sam can keep tracking them, I need you around.”

The line breaks between you two and its back to you and Bucky in the room again. He’s frowning slightly.

He takes a step towards you. It’s short but you’re closer. He says your name again, a bit firmer this time. “Do you know who I am?” you ask him. Anyone could get your name. Not even the museum in Washington could know the things that Bucky should know about you.

If he says even one of the things, you know it’s him you’re talking to. If not…you didn’t linger on that thought.

He thinks for a minute. “You fought with me once, before all of this…before I fell from that train…” he says. Your fingers twitch again – it’s something he could have gotten from the museum. “You were in the Commandos. You weren’t supposed to be though…you had short hair then, and you always wore this beat-up grey cap. Some of the guys actually thought you were a boy.”

He pauses.

“But I knew you weren’t. You made me promise not to tell them or you’d put a bullet between my eyes.”

There it was. You fingers slip away from your gun and your arms hang loosely by your sides.

You slowly step towards him. “Are you with me now?” you ask him. There’s still something behind his eyes. They’re brighter, but there’s still darkness behind them. Looking down at his hands, you notice he’s got gloves on. You look back up at him. “Are you our Bucky?”

You stop just in front of him. Everything in your mind is shouting at you to step away.

He reaches out – you can mechanics working, and assume that’s his robotic arm.

He takes your hand in his, turning it around until your palm is facing upwards. He’s look down at your hand, and then he rolls up your sleeve. It’s slow, and you let the movement happen. He’s looking for something.

He stops when he sees a scar – a jagged thing that isn’t concealed like your others. It’s an old scar, one you got when in the Commandos. The way he’s staring at it means he must be remembering it.

“You pulled me from a trench,” you told him, “I got hit, but you pulled me out.”

He reaches his other hand over to run his fingers over it. It’s a scar that doesn’t hold nay memory for you – you were unconscious by the time Bucky had carried you back to their acting base. But every time you looked at it, you just remember him. It had been torture looking at it, both when you believed he was gone and when you knew he was alive.

“I remember,” he mutters. When his eyes flicker up to meet yours, you smile sadly at him. “I don’t remember a lot…but I remember that.”

His fingers leave a trail of warmth as they travel over your scar. Some of the skin there is dead now, with not a lot of feeling in it, but you feel warm. You reach out with your own hand, slowly so he doesn’t reel back, and place it over his.

“I remember you crying,” you smile up at him. You remember hearing everything, but not being able to open your eyes. You could still feel everything though: your uniform drenched with rain and blood, some of it your own, or Bucky grabbing your uninjured arm tightly and hauling you up out of the trench. You remember, just before you went under, him bending down to lift your legs up into his arms and carrying you away from the carnage of a mission. Then only sounds remain after that.

**_“You’ll be okay doll…Get the damn medics!...fine, you’ll be just fine….don’t leave me…”_ **

His hand tenses under yours, but it relaxes again. When you raise your head, you realise how close you and Bucky are actually standing. Your nose barley brushes with his, and your breath mingles between the both you as you breathe together.

“You should get out of here,” you try to say, but his eyes are locked with yours again, “the Special Forces are after you. They think you did what happened in Vienna.”

He clenches his jaw. “I don’t do that anymore. It wasn’t me.”

“Well the people that are coming don’t care,” you explain. Your hand tightens around his. “Come with me. We’ll make sure you’re safe.”

His hand moves from your arm, and suddenly his fingers are tracing along your jaw. There are scars there too, you know. Faint faded ones that you got from broken shrapnel when a bomb exploded in a forest in Geneva. You breath quickens slightly.

“Bucky,” you let out a breath, “we need to go.”

 

When Bucky sees Steve again, you slowly back out of the room. It was one thing seeing you, it’s another seeing Steve. They deserve the moment alone without you there.

You walk through the compound, eventually ending up in the back yard. It’s not your typical backyard, as the compound opens out into a large green field with a forest a few metres away. You’ve walked through it enough times on your own. You think about doing it again when you hear someone walk up behind you.

“I see you have found Mr Barnes,” Vision stands beside you. It’s strange seeing him in civilian clothing.

You nod, shoving your hands into your jacket pockets. You’re both looking out onto the green field. Wanda is already out there, practising with her powers, making red tendrils climb up into the air and float through the sky. Every day her powers grow and grow. You worry about her sometimes, but then again you worry for all of them.

Vision turns to face you. “I want to make sure you are alright, Miss (Y/N).”

You smile at that. “I’m fine. Thank you Vis.”

Bucky walks down the steps and stands in the middle of the hallway. Vision nods to you and leaves, disappearing through a nearby wall and back into the compound. Bucky walks towards you, but stares at where Vision disappeared from.

“It’s strange,” you say, nodding to the spot on the wall, “but there are stranger things to see.”

Bucky looks over to you. There’s redness around his eyes and his cheeks are slightly damp. You want to wrap your arms around him and make sure he’s alright. It’s what you used to do back then when things got a bit too much. Not only did you have to deal with the world at war with itself, but HYDRA too. Everything always got a bit too much back then.

“Are you okay?” you ask instead.

He nods slowly.

You reach out slowly to take his hand in yours.

 

You wake up at some point during the night. It’s strange for you to do that. There has never been an attack on the compound. Your eyes flicker open but you stay still in the bed. A knife is kept by your bedside, holstered but laying on top of one of your books.

The door to your room slides open and you hear footsteps shuffle over the carpeted floor. It’s a stride you recognise. Turning around under the sheets, you see Bucky walking slowly towards your bed.

His hair is tied up with loose strands of hair falling down onto his face. You can see the mess of scarring and skin where his metal arm meets his shoulder.

“Buck?” you rub at your eyes. The clock on the side of your bed shows that it’s half three in the morning.

He looks to the door and then back at you. “I was wonderin’…I mean,” he rubs the back of his neck.

He doesn’t look okay. You sit up in bed to get a better look at him. There’s dark circles starting to settle under his eyes.

“The nightmares…” he says quietly. It’s all you need to hear.

“Do you want to stay here?”

“Just for the night,” he says.

You move the sheets on the other side of the bed, and shift over slightly. You want to tell him that he can stay as long as he needs to, or as long as he wants to. But you bite the inside of your cheek to keep the words from coming out. He slowly walks towards your bed, hesitating slightly before sliding in under the sheets.

When he settles, you want to reach out to touch him. Even to brush your fingers over his shoulder, or to wrap your arms around him and make sure he’s okay. You lie back onto the mattress and turn over to face the other side of your room. Your clock blinks red numbers at you. You should probably go back to sleep. You had training in the morning with Steve.

Still, you stayed awake until Bucky relaxed on the other side of the bed. It takes a while. He shuffles around every so often, and even when he’s lying still you know he’s awake.

After what seems to be an hour, but is really only ten minutes to your clock, you turn around to face him.

“You can’t sleep then?” you say when you see his eyes staring back at yours. You face each other, both lying on your sides.

He presses his lips together in a thin line. “No,” he says quietly, “no I can’t.”

The compound is deathly silent. Everyone’s either asleep, or in Tony’s case, in the lab below ground working away on something you would rather not know about.

The niggling feeling at the back of your mind gets the better of you. Your hand moves slowly up to Bucky’s face. He doesn’t twitch or pull away, but sighs gently when you touch his cheek. There’s a faint scar there. You wonder vaguely about where he got it from.

You run the tips of your fingers over his cheek, slowly trailing them down to his jaw. Bucky’s eyelids droop closes and he sighs.

His jaw tightens again. “I missed you.”

You shuffle close to him. “I missed you too,” you whisper, “I thought you were…gone.”

Bucky takes you hand in his and squeezes it. He slowly brings it to his lips and he kisses your knuckles.

Shuffling forward even more on the bed, you’re close enough to him to lean your head forward and press your forehead against his. You’re noses brush and your breath mingles.

“Are you back with me?” you whisper. You entwine your fingers with his.

It takes a minute for him to respond. “I think I am…” he trails off. He swallows. “They did things to me…terrible things. I don’t know if they’re gone…”

You rub your nose against his. Feeling his warmth again after so long makes your stomach lurch and your heart seize in your chest.

“I’ll make sure you’re okay,” you promise him. His eyelids flicker shut again when you rub your nose against his, humming softly an old song you used to hear in the barracks all of those years ago.

Your own eyes shut, but they open again when you feel Bucky press his lips against yours. It’s a closed kiss, a peck and nothing more. He swallows thickly when he pulls away.

“I’ve wanted to do that since Bucharest,” he rasps.

You run your fingers along his cheek again, tucking strands of his hair behind his ear. “Me too,” you reply, and capture his lips in yours in a deeper kiss. It doesn’t amount to anything else, but just the reassurance that you’re there together. An arm wraps around your waist and pulls you closer to him. With the combined heat of his body and the blankets, it’s too much, but you don’t care.

You cuddle closer to his chest, not once thinking about the very real threat that he might not be okay. He’s with you now. The monsters in his head are gone. If they do happen to be there, you’re ready to destroy them.

He sighs when you tuck your head under his chin. It’s such a natural movement – you had spent too many nights like this before. His arm tightens around your waist, tugging you as close as possible to him. You feel a kiss be pressed to the top of your head.

“I missed you so much, doll.”

You nuzzle into his neck, laughing slightly at his old nickname for you. “I think we’re stuck together, Barnes. Even time can’t separate us for long.”

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of backstory to the Mercenary series because why not. Also writing this while listening to the sad violin part of Brave's "We've both changed" and I could be crying. Who knows? (I am)
> 
> I'm also watching Eurovision. Ireland didn't get through (what else is new).
> 
> My Tumblr for prompts/chats! yourqueenforayear.tumblr.com
> 
> If you would like to request a prompt, either leave it in my ask box or in the comments below :3


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